Thimerosal and Mercury in Seasonal and Pandemic Vaccines

Thimerosal is a preservative that contains mercury and is used in multidose
vials of conventional and pandemic flu vaccines to prevent contamination when
the vial is repeatedly used to extract the vaccine. Although thimerosal is being
phased out as a vaccine preservative, it is still used in flu vaccines in low
levels. There is no data that indicate thimerosal in these vaccines has caused
autism or other problems in individuals. Consequently, the FDA has indicated the
following:

There is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the small doses of
thimerosal preservative in influenza vaccines, except for minor effects like
swelling and redness at the injection site.

However, single-dose vials and the nasal-mist formulations of both the seasonal and pandemic vaccines contain no thimerosal. These vaccine options are available to individuals who still want thimerosal-free vaccine. In addition, the new intradermal vaccine has no thimerosal. For thimerosal levels in flu vaccines, the reader should see the CDC table in the reference http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/vaccines.htm under "mercury content."